Bloomberg: What a Europe-led NATO would look like

US allies no longer believe they can count on Washington to stand with them against Russia. They’re now urgently debating what it would take to go it alone, Bloomberg stresses.

There’s virtually no appetite in Europe for a complete break from the US. Leaders of NATO countries believe a strong America is crucial to the alliance even as Europe assumes more duties. In the best-case scenario, Europeans and Americans would sit together and work out how the US will ramp down its military presence as the continent builds up its own. “The Europeans would love for that to take place in the most constructive, ordered way,” Major says. “But they can’t exclude the possibility that it might take place in a hostile, chaotic way.”

The kind of chaos European leaders fear is already on display. The Trump administration had signaled plans to withdraw US personnel stationed on the continent, but the president’s sudden decision in May to remove about 5,000 US troops from Germany caught many NATO allies by surprise. The Pentagon said it was part of a strategic shift toward the Pacific, but the timing of the move made it look more like political payback. The announcement came shortly after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz infuriated Trump by saying the US was being “humiliated” by Iran.

No Trump provocation alarmed European allies more than his suggestion that he’d use military force to seize Greenland if Denmark refused to turn over control of the semiautonomous territory. In the US, the threat was largely dismissed as yet more bluster. But leaders in Europe couldn’t afford to underestimate Trump and prepared for the unthinkable: one NATO member attacking another, a move that would rupture the alliance. Danish commanders readied defense plans and increased Denmark’s military presence on the island. European officials privately debated at what point their NATO commitments might require them to join a fight against America. Though Trump ultimately said he wouldn’t resort to military action, the episode left allies shaken and deeply mistrustful of the US. Those feelings were rekindled at the July summit, when the president once again demanded control of Greenland.

Trump’s whims risk weakening NATO right when it needs to project strength against Russian hostility, Major says. That could create a window of vulnerability in the years after the US begins scaling back but before Europe is ready to take the helm. “There’s a gap between what the US wants Europe to do to defend itself and what it can do,” she says. “If this gap is widening, Russia might be tempted to test it.”

The urgency spurred by Trump’s on-again, off-again hostility toward the alliance has led to a proliferation of studies and papers detailing how daunting it will be for a Europe-forward NATO to pick up all or even most of the vast defense capabilities America has long assumed on allies’ behalf. Europe’s militaries have thousands of planes, ships and tanks, but they’ll need more if the US goes through with its plans to draw down troops and equipment in the coming years. European defensive arsenals, including the all-important US-made Patriot air defense system, have been depleted in part by years of helping supply Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Replacement interceptor missiles cost about $4 million apiece, if they’re available at all. The waiting list was up to four years even before the Iran war put more strain on Patriot supplies.

Arming up may not be a Europe-led NATO’s biggest challenge. Just as difficult is how to replace the enormous intelligence and surveillance capabilities the US brings to NATO, or the unified command structure when no single dominant nation is sitting at the top.

In Major’s view, the success of any version of a Europe-led NATO will come down to an age-old question: “Will the allies stand together in case of a crisis? And does the enemy believe they will?” Europe “doesn’t need to be as good as the US” to create a credible deterrent, she says.

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